I love reviewing new social networks. As a social media type-person, nothing is more exciting than having a play on something newand FightMe is a network based on something we haven’t seen before, competition.

On FightMe, you have two things: 1) A Video and 2) a Hashtag. The idea is you upload a 30 second video shorts something you can do well and encourage others to essentially ‘fight you’ by responding using the hashtag you have associated with your video. The video with the most amount of ‘Applause’ wins, you are crowned victor, you get all the honeys.

FightMe is a very new network, it’s only been on the ‘scene’ for a few months since it’s Beta launch in May 2013.

History Lesson Time!

FightMe – the idea- came out of the head of Founder, Jamie Lorenz who thought it all up after Joelle Hadfield, the Co-Founder, and a childhood friend of Jamie were asked to sing and perform together at Jamie’s sisters’ wedding in the summer of 2011.

I’m sure they were amazing

While they were performing they noticed a certain element of “friendly competition” which spurred them onto improve their own performances.

And so, FightMe was born. They built a prototype, raised some money from family and friends (probably people who hadn’t heard the wedding singing, holla!) and began working and hiring a team to evolve their idea.

So, How Is it Doing?

I’ve given this network a fair bit of time to get into; it’s a nice simple interface with an easy to navigate nature. The brand colours are unobtrusive, friendly and vibrant. I also like the logo, even if it does kind of remind me of someone flipping the bird.

The beta version has grown and grown in users during my short time as part of this network with regular faces appearing right left and centre as many scrabble to become the new ‘Frogman’ or equivalent of this network. Being social network famous is a fickle, covetous prize that so many strive to achieve and so few actually do. I do worry that a network like this may turn into a popularity contest like many have done before it. However, to be fair to FightMe, their premise is pretty unique, I think it is safe to say that they will certainly work their hardest to keep the integrity of the Founders’ dream alive and well.

FightMe also now have a funky mobile app, making those video selfies on the commuter train a lot easier to achieve:

In terms of how well it’s doing – it’s still a bit early to tell as I’m still not sure which demographic it is likely to appeal to the most, but one thing that is pretty obvious is how much people like it so far.

Improvements

While I like the interface, it could be improved to make things ever so slightly easier – adding ‘Follow’ buttons next to users in the Trend stream for example (without having to leave the stream to view profiles then press follow then go back to the stream) are simple changes that improve usability and encourage conversation. Or simply being able to play the video within the stream rather than a new widow popping up would make the interface just that little bit quicker to engage with.

Changes like this are all simple to make the user experience smoother; and when this occurs, it leaves more time and room for great quality engagement.

This Network is for…

Singers, rappers, poets, comedians and people who are very, very good at sticky note origami. If you think about it, the sharing nature of any social network centres around some element of ego, we like to share because we like the interactions from friends that follow – FightMe appeals to that in buckets.

As far as I can see so far, the network is being primarily used by singers, songwriters, beat boxers, rappers and anyone that falls under the ‘Musician’ umbrella. Basically, if you’re trying to put yourself out there and get noticed, you’re probably going to like this network. It is also used by people who have some impressive dancing or acrobatic skills; performers of all kinds step up – the stage is yours!

Because of the calibre of talent out there, you’ll find that a lot of the users are perhaps not utilising it for the purpose of competition, and are using it instead as an extension of their social media presence.

Where are you Mr Follow Button?

Unfortunately, this leaves people with zero musical talent (me) who simply want to use the network to do what it was meant for with a relatively small pot in which to bubble.

The good news is that people are doing what people do best, shaping their social media into something they want rather than being confined by the parameters of the network itself. The bad news is that this might reduce the market-appeal for this network unless it is enhanced and improved rapidly to make sure people without SoundCloud-worthy talent don’t feel excluded.

How to Work it

Step 1:

Make a profile!

And make sure you have a reasonably good picture; you have got to attract attention in a world full of attention seekers – and I mean that in the nicest way possible. This network will attract extroverts, I should know – I am one. There is currently no function to link your profile to a website, so corporate accounts might not seevalue in it quite yet, however as soon as they do add this function I can see a lot of potential for some very fun social campaigns.

Personally, I went for the ‘same-as-my-twitter’ profile picture route. You can tell I work in SEO. You can find me here @Berry

Step 2:

Search for a trend to get involved in, or make your own.

I’ve been favouring the #postit trend…which, granted, I made but that is only because my talent stretches to drawing stick men and writing silly notes and leaving them all around the Receptional office. But there are loads of them out there. Take the #singing hashtag for example; this attracts people with some serious talent so competing on this space is hard, where as competing on a slightly less serious hashtag may lead you to victory.

Step 3:

Record a video. Show off your talent. Throw down a gauntlet and dare people to challenge your power.

Step 4:

Wait for the applause. If you ‘win’, you get more applause than others in your chosen hashtag and you get a nice little Badge for your trouble. If you don’t win, you get some nice comments anyway so all in all, ego is well and truly stroked.

Obviously, the better the vid, the more applause

The FightMe Future

FightMe has potential; that much is certain. They have a lot of plans bubbling under the surface, I am very interested to see how the premise grows and evolves, especially to see if and how they retain the competition element. I think it’s that that makes it something a bit unique and special when we compare FightMe with the myriad of social networks out there.

What I really like about FightMe is how nice the community currently is – the FightMe team are involved too and they spend a lot of their time trying to boost your video, which is really nice. With a team of just 7 including the founders, and some great social media advocates, it’s still got that nice ‘family feel’ that I love about social networking.

Personally, I like this stage of any new network – it’s a time of really exciting growth for FightMe and they have a great team behind it spurring them on all the way. It’s been an absolute pleasure to review and I will continue to use it, mostly to sate my own curiosity to see how well it does in the future, and also because I feel the world needs to see my sticky note creations:

Sarah is Social Media Account Manager for the leading digital agency, Punch Communications.
She has worked on a range of Digital Marketing campaigns and is a strong advocate of the use Social Media for the progression of any business. Her clients include Sony Mobile, Electrolux and more!
A Welsh rugby fan and an avid Great British Bake off watcher, Sarah loves to Tweet, chat and cuddle cats.